Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to drilling analytics and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to systems and methods for enabling real-time drilling-performance analysis.
History of Related Art
As will be appreciated by one of ordinary skill in the art, well control is a practice used in oil and gas operations such as drilling to maintain the fluid column hydrostatic pressure to prevent, inter alia, influx of formation fluids into a wellbore and unintentional fracture of a rock structure of a formation. The term formation encompasses soil, rock, and the like that are encountered when drilling. Well control often involves the estimation of pressures, the strength of the subsurface formations, and the use of casing and mud density to offset those pressures in a predictable fashion.
Two indicators that are frequently used in well control are pore pressure and fracture gradient. Pore pressure refers to the pressure of groundwater held within a soil or rock in gaps between particles (i.e., pores). A fracture gradient refers to an amount of pressure necessary to permanently deform, or fracture, a rock structure of a formation. Various methods are known for predicting pore pressure and fracture gradient. For example, one such method is known as the Eaton method. By way of further example, another such method is known as the Matthews and Kelly method.
While methods exist for predicting pore pressure and fracture gradient, it is not generally feasible to perform and have access to these predictions in real time as wells are being drilled. In addition, it is also not generally possible to predict events in real time such as, for example, lost circulation or a stuck pipe.